Climbing Mount Readmore 2017, 11/100 ‘Voices of World War I: Stories from the Trenches’

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5 Personal Stories of WW1 out of 5

Spoiler-tastic Review

This is a children’s book, printed in large font on twenty five-ish pages. I was tempted not to make a review for it, it was so short that I finished it in five minutes, but I decided to because I need to review one hundred books this year to meet my goal. I checked this book out from my local library system’s books about WW1, as part of my research about that war.

This is a good piece of nonfiction for children between the ages of five and seven I’d say. The language it uses is not very challenging, and the scenes it describes have been very cleaned to be made safe for young ears (eyeballs). It is however a little sad, as one would expect about personal stories from World War I.

If I were to criticize this book it would be in its neglect of including anecdotes from the people of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain, Italy, Serbia, Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Perhaps these stories were cut keep the page count low.

Indeed my greatest criticism was the fact that the author chose not to mention the German Capt. Karl von Müller. von Müller followed the rules of war even when it endangered him and his crew, saving many hundred British and Japanese lives that would otherwise be lost. I think the children reading this children’s book would appreciate reading about such a valorous man.